Another Dimension
by The Undying Mongoose
Summary: Genius meant always being alone. Almost. Spoilers through "Revelations, Part II."


**Notes: **The historical Montague John Druitt was assistant schoolmaster at a boarding school in Blackheath until 1888. And the Watson of Holmes fame is indeed named John, not James.

Another Dimension

Those who wished for greater intelligence never realized how lonely it was. Watson discovered that very soon after the injection. Men whose company he had once enjoyed now seemed imbeciles to him. His favorite books felt childish. When natural means of stimulation failed him, he turned to the chemical, to see if perhaps further injections could counteract the first. Cocaine provided momentary peace, but Watson could feel the falsehood behind it.

John pulled him into truth. If his friend had not been there, if there had been no one who cared about his fate...Watson shuddered to think of where he might have gone. The Five were the only men whose intellect could begin to compare with his own, even slightly. Nikola, Nigel, Helen...and John. Especially John.

"A truly intelligent man wouldn't _do_ this to himself!" John had reprimanded, the night he'd discovered Watson's shameful habit. There was an edge to the man that night, a darkness to his anger. Perhaps a cleverer man would have seen then what John had become. "Damn it, James, what were you _thinking_?"

The shame and anger on John's face, the horror that his closest friend would do such a thing, pierced through Watson's tired melancholy. It would be falsehood to say that everything was fine after that, but for a short time, Watson was not lonely. Every evening, John would leave the hooligans at Valentine's to their own devices for a few hours and join Watson for a drink at one of the clubs to which they belonged. Sometimes one of the others would join them, Nikola for talk of science, Nigel for talk of criminology, or Helen for talk of anything at all. But the Five had their own lives, and most often it was simply Watson and John.

When young Doyle began writing his story, he asked if he should perhaps change Watson's Christian name, so that the public would not equate Holmes' associate with the prominent London doctor. "John," Watson said immediately. "Call him John."

Then came the Ripper case. When first approached by Scotland Yard, Watson was thrilled. At last, a villain whose skill matched his own, whose crimes provided a worthy exercise for his intellect. Even when things were at their most desperate, it filled Watson with excitement, that there was for once a risk of failure. It consumed his waking hours and each of his dreams, and he could talk of nothing else.

"You neglect your patients, James," said Helen one night. She'd deigned to take a few hours off from the attainment of her second doctorate to try to talk some sense into the men. "And you, John, do the same to your students."

"Can't you understand the _importance _of this?" Watson waved his empty brandy glass for emphasis. John sat back in silence, not about to get between his fiancée and his best friend. "Such atrocious acts, Helen! And such an enigma! You and your esteemed father are always telling us how important it is that we use our gifts for the common good. Is there no greater good than this?" Helen did not offer his words the dignity of a response, so Watson turned back to John. "So then, these two new victims..."

It was nearly a month later that Helen came running into Watson's surgery, her eyes reddened by tears. "It's John," she announced, choking back a sob. "Dear God, James, the Ripper is John!"

***

There were more cases, many more, but none struck Watson to the core as the Ripper case had. His greatest case and his greatest failure.

Without John, the Five felt hollow. The boredom and the loneliness returned, and Watson once more sought new forms of stimulation. Music, travel, drink…every entertainment known to man, but nothing could set his blood afire anymore. It was a thousand times worse than it had been before the Ripper. He briefly looked back to cocaine, but the mere sight of the syringe sent memories of John's outburst flying back, and Watson threw the damned thing across the room in disgust.

He crafted the suit not because of any great desire to live, but because he had nothing better to do.

***

Two centuries turned, and James Watson met John Druitt again. The temptation to rip John's throat out was tempered only by the presence of Helen's protégé, and Watson was quite certain that Helen had sent the boy with him for exactly that purpose. A very astute woman was Helen Magnus.

Greetings were brief, colored by the crisis that loomed before them as well as the one that lay behind. Watson studied John closely throughout the meeting, seeking a sign--_any_ sign--of the man's true intentions. Here was the monster who murdered eight women, who evaded Watson's grasp while playing the confidant, who betrayed every trust Watson had bestowed on him. Watson could not believe that a few volts of electricity could turn this monster into a saint. So he watched, and waited for John to give himself away.

But he did not, and Watson allowed his attention to stray to Dr. Zimmerman, who was looking to be a very promising young man. Helen did have an eye for potential. The boy had the makings of an expert detective, and Watson felt a pang of envy that Helen would be the one to teach him. Perhaps when this current crisis was over, Helen would allow him to borrow Zimmerman for a short while. She'd lent him Henry often enough, when there was some catastrophe with the UK Sanctuary's computers.

Watson had to hide his astonishment when the boy deduced the location of the central ziggurat. Impressive for any man, and for one with no abnormal abilities, it was amazing indeed. And he understood Watson's use of time as a variable, the incorporation of a fifth dimension into his observations. Will Zimmerman had the makings of a fine detective, and Watson wished he would be able to encourage his talents.

But already he was feeling the suit getting slower, and knew, though he would never tell the others, that he would not be around long enough to accomplish any of these plans for the future.

John was the only one who had noticed Watson's weakness, but did nothing other than offer a shoulder to support his old friend. Watson silently thanked the man for that, for allowing him to spend his last hours in dignity and usefulness. One last puzzle for the great detective. But the puzzle was missing something, and his mind was racing, trying to sort it out before he left the world forever.

_Not yet_, he screamed at himself when he felt the suit fail. _Not yet, not now. I haven't solved it yet!_ Even lying on the stone floor, all one hundred and sixty years catching up to him at once, he racked his brain for the piece he was missing. As he comforted Helen, dear immortal Helen, he resigned himself to the fact that there was not enough time. He had cheated time for over a century. He could keep it at bay no longer.

"Find the missing piece," he urged the one man who might just understand. "Find it."

He said nothing to John. All that he'd needed to say, he had said. And he'd never held much stock in sentimental good-byes.

There were John and Helen, John's arm curled around her waist as it had been in the days when they were engaged. And there was Nikola, standing apart from it all but with sorrow on his face. There was Nigel's granddaughter, a bit of her ancestor in her eyes. And there was Will, who would be brilliant.

Few things were lonelier than genius. But James Watson died among friends.


End file.
